Chloral hydrate anesthesia and lens opacification in mice.

PURPOSE

To study the effect of chloral hydrate in the eye lens in mice.

METHODS

We instilled tropicamide in the eyes of two groups of eight 129 strain wild-type mice and injected chloral hydrate intraperitoneally (400 mg/kg). A drop of hypromellosum solution was additionally instilled in the eye of the second group to reduce corneal dehydration. The lens was inspected at several time intervals with a standard slit lamp biomicroscope after the injection.

RESULTS

No lens opacification was found in any animal after the topical administration of tropicamide. On the contrary, the intraperitoneal administration of chloral hydrate produced lens opacification in both groups of animals.

CONCLUSIONS

We show that chloral hydrate, when used intraperitoneally, induces acute and reversible lens opacification in all animals. In addition, we found that instillation of hypromellose solution does not prevent the lens opacification caused by chloral hydrate injection. We hypothesized some plausible explanations for these findings.